Transforming Mobile Tower Infrastructure in the Philippines

In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, mobile network operators and infrastructure providers face the ongoing challenge of maintaining and optimising extensive networks of communication towers. The Philippines, a country with a burgeoning digital economy, is no exception. To stay ahead in this competitive environment, Phil-Tower Consortium Inc. (PhilTower), the nation's leading tower company, has embarked on an ambitious journey to modernise and transform its infrastructure. A pivotal element of this transformation has been PhilTower's strategic partnership with PowerX.

In September 2022, PhilTower took a major step forward by acquiring 1,350 cell towers from Globe Telecom, marking the beginning of a comprehensive effort to modernise and optimise these assets. Recognising the critical need for advanced data-driven insights to manage its vast portfolio, PhilTower partnered with PowerX in November 2023. The goal: to leverage AI and machine learning to enhance network visibility, optimise energy usage, and streamline operations.

A Modernisation Journey

The partnership with PowerX marked a significant milestone in PhilTower's modernisation journey. By integrating PowerX's data intelligence platform into its operations, PhilTower aimed to automate insights, accelerate decision-making, and optimise asset distribution across its tower portfolio. The platform's advanced capabilities enabled PhilTower to detect operational inefficiencies swiftly, prioritise improvements, and reduce the mean time to repair (MTTR) faults, all of which contributed to enhanced CapEx and OpEx decisions.
“The tower industry is still in its youth,” said Devid Gubiani, CEO at PhilTower. “Network assets were once wholly owned and operated by the MNOs, but today their innovation is focused on delivering the best customer experience.  They need reliable, robust, built-for-capacity networks that enable them to do that.  Managing passive infrastructure has been a distraction from their core business, and tower companies have been able to transform what had previously been CapEx and OpEx liabilities into successful, standalone businesses. Our viability as an industry rests on delivering more bandwidth, better uptime, expanded coverage, achieved sustainability goals, and universal next-gen wireless communications standards – all at lower costs. The only way this can be achieved is by modernising the networks top-to-bottom, and applying sophisticated data intelligence tools to maximise efficiency and drive down costs. The PowerX platform offered all of this, and more.”

One year into the partnership, and after only six months of active operational optimisation, PhilTower has reported remarkable outcomes from its collaboration with PowerX. These results underscore the power of data-driven decision-making and the transformative impact of AI on infrastructure management.

'Mothballing' Unecessary Generators 

One of the most significant achievements has been the reduction of diesel generator use across PhilTower's network. When PhilTower acquired its first cohort of 1,350 towers from Globe, it had already targeted diesel generator de-commisioning as one of its first priorities. Unlike many regions in the world, Southeast Asia ranks high as having reliable, good quality grid availability, with the Philippines (enjoying an average of 23.2 hours of grid a day) vying for the top spot with Sri Lanka and Malaysia. PhilTower was intent on taking a ‘battery first’ strategic direction, calculating that network uptime could be maintained – if not increased - with a combination of battery backup and solar generation on its sites, without the need for fuel-guzzling diesel generators.

In theory, this could make 100% of generators suitable for elimination, but without a clear understanding of localised solar and battery capabilities, the decision to mothball any particular generator had to be made with a specific understanding of the challenges each site presented.

“First, we had to determine the health and efficacy of the batteries at every tower,” said P T Pawar, PhilTower’s chief operations officer, “and then the localised cost of solar generation. If demand for solar generation was less than 8Kw at any given tower, there were no commercial benefits for keeping the generator.”

PhilTower used the PowerX platform to synthesise all the data on grid, battery and solar for all 1,350 sites, and identify several hundred sites which met the strict criteria for DG elimination -approximately 50% of its (then) portfolio. This strategic shift generated nearly half a million USD in immediate fuel cost savings, as well as reducing annual CO2 emissions by 700 tons.

The reduction in diesel generator usage had a cascading effect on operational efficiency. With fewer generators to maintain, PhilTower reduced maintenance, repair, and site visit costs - adding a further half a million USD in cost saving onto the books. This brought the total OpEx reductions from diesel generator eliminations alone to nearly a million USD.

In line with its commitment to reducing reliance on diesel generators, PhilTower also focused on improving battery management across its sites – in part to ensure generators could be eliminated without risk to uptime, but also to improve the performance of its battery assets overall. It was imperative that the CapEx available for upgrades or replacements was surgically targeted to the most requiring sites. 

Comprehensive analyses conducted in partnership with PowerX identified several hundred sites requiring battery replacements or upgrades, based on the capacity and monitored performance of the battery arrays. The audit revealed over 170 sites that had no battery backup whatsoever, with around 45% of sites struggling with only two back-up batteries. As a result, PhilTower initiated a targeted CapEx investment program of over $2.8M to ensure high-functioning battery backup systems were installed at the most deserving tower locations, thereby minimising operational expenditure while maintaining or improving network resilience.

Business Process Transformation

In addition to guiding the selection of generator eliminations, and targeting sites for battery replacement and upgrades, the PowerX platform provided full visibility into PhilTower's estate – available to every level of the organisation, from NOC Engineers to the boardroom. This integration of PowerX's platform into PhilTower’s business processes has transformed how PhilTower approaches network operations and maintenance.

The platform's automated energy insights are streamlining decision-making, reducing manual workloads and improving alarm and trouble ticket management through intelligent prioritisation. The advancements have significantly reduced operational workloads, allowing PhilTower's teams to focus on strategic initiatives.

When the trouble ticket automation went online at the beginning of August 2024 for example, PowerX’s analytics and data science tools began filtering and aggregating the many thousands of alarms coming up from the network and prioritising them for the NOC and engineering teams. The platform stripped out alarms that were false positives, duplicated or needlessly repetitive - and prioritised the most important ones for urgent action. Immediately, the workload for the NOC team fell by an astonishing 80%, and the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) dropped by 30%.

This improvement increased network availability to 99.98%, a critical metric for mobile network operators (MNOs) that directly impacts customer retention, revenue protection, and competitive advantage.

“Clearly defining tasks that field personnel needed to undertake on-site, based on patterns PowerX extracted from RMS data, has led to a remarkable reduction in our MTTR,” said Gubiani “We have a contractual obligation to respond within four hours  - and we are down to less than two hours. I don’t believe that’s seen in many markets of this region. We have achieved a level of predictability would have been unfeasible without the support of a dedicated 30-40 person team”.

The increase in network uptime amounted to an average of about three hours per tower, per month – enough to trigger a rise in consumer data usage and generate an additional half a million USD income for PhilTower’s MNO customer.

PhilTower's modernisation program is an ongoing effort, with future plans that include the installation of hybrid power systems (savings of $80k USD for 20 prime sites), solarisation and cooling optimisation (savings of nearly a million USD, plus CO2 reductions of over 9,000 tons), and power systems consolidation. In total, these initiatives are projected to save an additional $1.5M USD next year and reduce annual CO2 emissions by nearly 10,000 tons.

The Journey Continues

PhilTower and PowerX’s journey continues with the merger of PhilTower and MIDC, which is anticipated to occur in the coming months. This will bring a further 2,000 sites into the PowerX optimisation ecosphere - positioning PhilTower and MIDC at the forefront of innovation in the global tower industry.

The partnership serves as a compelling example of how AI-powered data intelligence can drive significant improvements in infrastructure performance, operational efficiency, and sustainability. By leveraging advanced data science tools, PhilTower has not only modernised its network but also benchmarked many operational KPIs - setting new standards for mobile tower infrastructure management in the Philippines. As the partnership continues to evolve, both companies are committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation to deliver unparalleled value to stakeholders, mobile operators, and the broader digital economy.

“Applying data science tools and optimisations to over a thousand sites within half a year is a significant milestone for PhilTower,” added Devid Gubiani. “Our commitment to digitalisation has transformed our network, enabling rapid sale and leaseback transitioning, full remote asset visibility, efficient operations, and data-driven decisions that optimise CapEx and OpEx - passing those savings to our customers while increasing uptime by three hours per site per month

“We now have the tools to maximise asset leverage and drive revenue, creating a 21st-century tower network with next-generation maintenance and proactive energy efficiency plans. With PowerX, we optimise our distributed assets using a range of KPIs and have set ambitious targets to deliver substantial growth and value to our stakeholders, including unparalleled service to our mobile operators and ambitious carbon reduction initiatives.”

Andrew Schafer, CEO at PowerX, commented: “We are delighted that PhilTower is seeing immediate and strategic benefits from the data-driven optimisations and automation provided by the PowerX platform. This collaboration highlights our pioneering role in leveraging deep data analytics, AI, and machine learning to deliver outstanding network efficiency. The PowerX platform has empowered PhilTower’s teams to drive operational excellence, enhancing asset and energy performance and integrating data intelligence for future energy programs. Together, we are raising the bar, setting a new standard for network intelligence and site efficiency in the Philippines.”

About PhilTower

PhilTower is an Independent Tower Company in the Philippines registered with the Department of Information Communication and Technology. PhilTower designs, builds and operates digital infrastructure in partnership with Mobile Network Operators (MNO). It is a joint investment between Macquarie Capital and Pan-Asian Digital Shared Infrastructure group: Global Network, Inc. With a comprehensive portfolio of deployment, PhilTower also provides innovative outdoor solutions such as camouflage sites, micro poles, green towers, and smartpoles.